Dahlias and Hurricanes
Well there’s a title I never thought I would write. This is one of those blogs that may have more answers than questions right now. But one of the many reasons I blog is to have a record of what happens while growing dahlias in climates they hate. And now we have another reason they hate this climate.
But yet, we persevere!
So - the facts: From Sept 26-27, the Upstate portion of South Carolina (along with western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Florida, and a swath of Georgia from the coast to the Carolina border was hit by Hurricane Helene that made landfall as a category 4. I know we received over 11” of rain at our farm. This was also after a severe thunderstorm had already come through our area 2 days before causing some damage and soaking our soil to the saturation point.
First off: How do you prepare?
1. Harvest everything you can from your fields. Don’t leave partially open flowers to wave around in the wind and rock your plants- this disturbs the roots.
2. Support everything! Make sure all your netting is in place and secured, add extra corralling.
3. Prune plants if needed. If this storm had come through in August, I would have pruned any really tall plants back knowing I had enough time for them to regrow/bloom. Since this was the end of September, we didn’t do that this time.
4. Increase your drainage. If you know you have areas of poor drainage, pre-dig some routes for water to escape.
Then you go hunker down and stay safe during the storm.
Afterwards:
So one thing I’ve learned is to give things a little time. They always seem worst right after the storm. So the only thing I did the first day was observe. I recorded how bad the damage was and where. I learned one area of my farm is a wind tunnel. The dahlias there were not just blown over- it looked like something had whipped them around and caused a massive tangle of plants. We had to cut that row back by half. It won’t bloom again this year but there was no salvaging it, best we can hope for now is tuber growth. Fortunately the weather is being kind now and we are staying dry.
Our home farm sits on a hill and never have I been more thankful for it. Majority of the standing water drained off within 24 hours. It did leave some silt in areas that still needs to be removed but mostly we had to cut out a lot of broken and damaged stems. Most of the blooms were windblown and waterlogged. All in all I would say we lost about 75% of our saleable blooms for the week in this field.
Our offsite location was not as fortunate. We had 4 rows of white dahlias. We sell a lot of white dahlias because a large majority of our customers are wedding florists. Two of the four rows had just started blooming about week and a half before and the other two rows were budding up. On Saturday when I took the first look, here’s what I saw:
Wilted, stressed out plants. Those plants are basically drowning because so much water had come down and this field is flat. The blooming rows looked like this:
The left picture is a week before the storm, the right is a day after the storm. I’ll admit I was very discouraged when I saw this. This field represents a significant portion of our income for October. White dahlias are the one color I can always sell. And now we’ve lost 90% of what was in bloom.
The above picture is from Tuesday morning. You can see where the plants on the left side are rebounding but the right side is still wilty. The two non-blooming rows look like this all the way down. One plant is fine, the next one is drowning. Right now, about 40% of the plants look okay. However, I dug around in the soil and could feel mushy tubers. This is not a good sign. My hope is that they have a big enough tuber base that they won’t rot completely. These are second year plants and they are Blizzards (which are amazing tuber makers). A late frost and a dry October would be a huge blessing right now. Might be enough time to get some blooms and new tuber growth out of these plants. The only thing we have done to these is to pull back the mulch so the soil will dry out faster.
We just raked it into the pathway. Should help a little, I hope!
I was able to cut the damage out of about 20’ of one row. So we’ll get a few more blooms but the rest of the rows looks like this:
I honestly don’t know if cutting back this hard was the right decision. But after 4 days, I was already seeing yellowing foliage and the plants were so stressed. I felt like removing the heavy foliage burden from the plants might give them a chance to regrow. At this point, it’s a waiting game.
The goal changed after this storm came through- at this point, it’s all about saving the tubers! Losing the blooms is a substantial loss but loosing the tubers would be 4x the loss. One thing I do know from previous tropical storms: you don’t dig your tubers when they are saturated. I thought this would be a good idea a few years ago after I saw plants sitting in water after a tropical storm. Those tuber clumps mostly rotted in storage. Tubers that have an excessively high water content don’t store well! So here’s hoping for a beautifully dry October and really late frost. We need time for plants to regrow!
2024 Variety Highlight- September
It’s been awhile since I’ve done a variety highlight so let’s go. There’s not really a theme to this- these are just some varieties I’m loving right now. Some are new to our field, some we’ve grown a few years.
Copper Boy
Copper Boy- Red seems to be getting popular again. I’m getting more and more requests for it. I’m glad, ready to move on from the burgundy phase. Copper Boy is gorgeous, shorter dahlia but cut deep and you’ll get some good stems.
KA Cinder Rose
KA Cinder Rose- A lot of my new KA’s died off in the July heatwave, but this beauty stayed strong. And she’s given me several stems already. Only her first year here but showing good potential- here’s hoping for some good tubers!
20th Ave Gwen
20th Ave Gwen- this has been a pleasant surprise. I’m not sure if I ever even saw it bloom last year. If so- I think it missed it. But it’s gorgeous, well worth the wait. This is a dahlia you want to let open a good bit on the plant because the color develops more as it opens. It softens and takes on some peachiness on the lower petals.
Normandy Bright Day
Normandy Bright Day- I was expecting the color to be a bit more vibrant but it’s a beautiful peachiness which I’m not sad about! First year here but it definitely gets a pass to keep growing.
Doodlebug
Doodlebug- I’ve been growing this for a few years and I just keep thinking it gets cuter and cuter. It’s a smaller size than most of what I grow but has a certain sweetness to it. It also blends into any fall palette!
Diana’s Memory
Diana’s Memory- this is an old favorite. I lost it a few years ago because she’s not a great tuber maker. But she’s always been a favorite blush so I decided to try again. Will she make good tubers? Well we’ll know in a month or so.
End of Season Dahlia Checklist
It’s time to begin your end of season tasks. Yes- I know they really just got going good, but some of these tasks you need to do now!
So to prep your dahlias successfully for over winter and next year:
1. Make sure they are labeled properly. Double check every plant and make sure it’s tag reads the correct variety. I use old vinyl blinds (the cheap kind), cut them up and write on them in pencil. It has never failed me! If you are digging your dahlias, zip tie it to the base of the plant.
If you have a mislabel that you can’t identify, try posting in Dahlia forums on Facebook, asking friends, check with the supplier- there are multiple ways to figure it out. And if I can’t find the actual name, I just write a description- that way I know it’s not what the original label said it was.
2. Figure out when you need to stop fertilizing. Look up your average first frost date and then work back a month from there. After that point, don’t fertilize any more. You don’t want to encourage a lot of new growth towards the end of the season. Just let your dahlias focus on tuber growth during the last month. If you don’t wait until frost to dig your tubers, just stop fertilizing about a month out from when you will dig.
3. Decide on your winter storage method. We’ll talk more in depth about this later but decide if you are going to dig or leave your tubers in the ground.
4. Make your wish list for next year. Decide who you want to add and who’s getting the boot to make room for new additions.
Where are they now?
Today it’s the dahlia version of “Where are they now?” I decided to share updates on the varieties that I’ve written about in the past and how they fared in the extreme heat/drought of 2024’s summer.
Last fall I released a list of 5 varieties that really stood out to me as being potential great cut flower varieties. But in 2024, I’ve seen some different results (this is why I grow a variety minimum 3 years before I’ll add it to my “must grow list for the hot South.”)
1. All That Jazz- well I’ve yet to see a bloom, they are barely at bud stage. The plants are small and have struggled despite being in a slightly cooler spot than a lot of other varieties. We’ll see if this one gets to stay.
2. Cryfield Harmony- Can’t speak to this one b/c as I said last year- it’s a great cut flower— For cool weather growers. So hopefully some of you tried it out!
3. Caitlyn’s Joy, Copper Boy, and Tahoma Curve- I’m grouping these because they’ve all done excellent. Tahoma had a bit of spider mite damage but pulled through it well. I’ll continue to keep these in my collection.
4. KA Mocha Katie was also a special mention and it has done exceptionally well. Got attacked by spider mites but just keep right on growing and has been a steady producer for weeks now.
Below are all the photos of these varieties:
Out of Your Control
One unintended benefit of writing a newsletter that goes out across the country is that I can tell by the number and the content of the emails I get what kind of year it’s been for growing dahlias.
And this year- it’s been rough! I don’t always follow the weather across the country but I do know that the extreme heat/drought in July that a large majority of us experienced was brutal and caused a lot of loss.
Hamilton Lillian
At the end of July I walked around my field with a clipboard. I took notes on every variety- I figured it would be a good time to see who’s really heat tolerant. But what I kept seeing over and over again- was the phrase: “xyz caused by extreme heat”- insert spider mites, powdery mildew, etc- whatever was the case for you.
At first I was really bummed and very frustrated. I knew my dahlias were almost a month behind where they should have been. But then I realized something….
We had been consistent. We fertilized when we should have, we controlled pests when they attacked, we removed old leaves to allow air flow, we netted on time. To be honest, we got it really right this year.
But the weather had other plans- And nothing we could have done would have changed that. We did everything we could have and should have but at the end of the day- the weather is out of our control.
So I took a few days and accepted it. I adjusted my mindset and realized that we are going to have a killer season once we get to mid- September. The dahlias are just going to be a little later this year. But on the plus side- October weddings are going to be gorgeous!!
What if you are new to growing and didn’t know to fertilize, control pests, etc? Well- it’s not too late. Fertlize them soon. Look around on this blog- there’s lots of info about bug control, fertilization and general dahlia growing knowledge. It will still make a difference for this season.
So if you are frustrated - hang in there. It’s going to get better. The weather is already getting better. Fertilize, water, control your pests and be patient a little longer. The blooms are coming!!
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**You may have noticed I said “we” a lot in this post. I couldn’t have done it this year without my incredible team. There is absolutely no way the dahlias would still be alive without them. They are amazing- Sophie, Nonah, and Josie- You ladies are the best!!
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